Is there anything special about the new millennium? According to biblical records, we have just entered the seventh millennium of human history. A number of prophecies, both biblical and non-biblical, hint that the seventh millennium of history will have a special blessing of God upon it. Could this be the long-awaited sabbath millennium, the universal utopian dream of the human race? "And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given to them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and who had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years." (Revelation 20:4)
This is the verse in the Bible that has given Christians their hope in the Utopian dream, their hope for a period that will last a thousand years when earth will finally be everything it was intended to be--when all of its best potential will be realized. The idea that such a period would last for a thousand years appears to have begun a little before Christianity and may have been part of the thinking that surrounded Christ during his life. A mysterious book, known as The Book of Enoch was not accepted as part of the Bible, though it was sometimes quoted by early Church leaders. It may not have made the list because there are, at least, three versions with significant discrepancies between them, so no authoritative text exists. Nevertheless, Enoch retains the distinction of being the only non-biblical book quoted word-for-word within the New Testament. Jesus' own brother Jude quotes from Enoch in his brief letter, which precedes the Apocalypse. Found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, Enoch is believed to have been written by a Jew living just before the time of Christ. One edition of the book contains the following intriguing prophecy regarding earth's historic time line. It indicates that history, from the time of Adam, will run its course in 7,000 years, corresponding to the seven days of creation in Genesis. It also indicates the seventh thousand will follow the Messiah's second coming: "I [God] said to him [Adam]: '. . . Then I can again take thee [by resurrection] at My second coming.' . . . And I blessed the seventh day, which is the sabbath on which he [Adam] rested from all his works. . . . and that the . . . seven [days] revolve in the form of the seventh thousand, and that at the beginning of the eighth thousand there should be a time of not-counting, endless with neither years, nor months nor weeks nor days nor hours." (Secrets of Enoch 32:1, 2, 4; 33:1)
Many Christians believe human history will climax in a millennial utopia after which the followers of Christ will enter eternal existence with God. This is based in part on the millennium mentioned in The Apocalypse, which is blessed by Christ's presence with his followers who reign with him in justice upon the earth. The prophecy of Enoch implies that the seven days of creation in Genesis were intended to have symbolic significance regarding the full history of mankind after Adam. The length of each day of creation, according to Enoch, is to be measured in terms of the seventh day, which is called the "seventh thousand." God seems to be telling Enoch that each of the seven days of the creation story symbolizes a thousand revolutions of the earth around the sun. (Note that the mention of revolutions puts this prophecy way ahead of its time in terms of understanding the cause of yearly cycles.) The Secrets of Enoch also implies the seventh thousand will be blessed as a time of rest after God's second coming, when Adam and his kind are resurrected from the earth. The Apocalypse, too, mentions a resurrection in connection with its millennium. Enoch then mentions an eighth day in which humanity will enter timeless existence with God. This is also paralleled in the Apocalypse, where humanity enters eternal existence with God after the millennium. Other parts of the New Testament indicate a similar millennial belief existed among Christ's disciples. Like Enoch, The Apostle Peter links the days of creation with earth's final days and God's judgment,: "They [scoffers] deliberately ignore this fact, that by the word of God heavens existed long ago, and an earth formed out of water and by means of water, through which the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished [Noah's flood]. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist have been stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." (2 Peter 3:5 8)
This prophecy speaks of the period of creation, which, according to the Book of Genesis, was followed by a cataclysm known as Noah's flood. It compares earth's creation story, followed by the flood, to the other end of earth's history when life on earth will be destroyed by a cataclysm of fire. In saying "with the Lord one day is as a thousand years," was Peter referring specifically to the days of creation, which he just described, indicating that the creation story was divided into seven days in order to symbolize seven thousand years of human history from the days of Adam to the end of the world, which he also described? Was Peter affirming what is found in the Book of Enoch? The concept of a sabbath millennium alludes to a command given in the Book of Exodus: "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God . . . For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it." (Exodus 20:8-11)
Was this observance of the sabbath intended as a living sacrament to foreshadow the total history of earth? In working six days and resting on the seventh, the daily life of the Jews would symbolize full scope of human history--six thousand years of labor, followed by a seventh millennium when humanity and God would rest together--a millennium that is called "blessed" and "hallowed" because God will be specially present in it (as the Messiah). It is not God, after all, who needs rest, but humans who need to rest in God. [Also See Understanding Prophecy and Typology] Many early Church fathers believed that is exactly how these prophecies should be understood. Christ would come and reign at the beginning of the seventh or sabbath millennium of human history. One of the first on record was the companion of the Apostle Paul, a man named Barnabas. Numerous early Church fathers have attested that the Epistle of Barnabas is authentic. In this letter Barnabas writes, "Consider, my children, what [the story of creation] signifies. . . . The meaning of it is this: that in six thousand years the Lord God will bring all things to an end. For with him one day is a thousand years. . . . Therefore, children, in six days, that is in six thousand years, shall all things be accomplished. And what is that he saith, And he rested the seventh day; he meaneth this: that when his Son shall come . . . then he shall gloriously rest in that seventh day. . . ." (Barnabas 13:3-6)
All of this comes home to rest with the present millennial change. Around A.D. 1650, an Irishman known as Bishop Usher calculated the genealogies and chronologies of the Bible along with the historical records of Babylon and came up with 4,000 years between the biblical time of Adam and the birth of Christ, which would make A.D. 2000 approximately the final year of the sixth millennium. While some cultures, such as the ancient Eygptian culture, had historic records that date things back further than the biblical record, it would make sense, if one is interpreting Jewish prophecies, to use the Jewish record of human history as the time line for those prophecies. Interestingly, The Apocalypse, the one biblical book that clearly mentions a special millennium, places repeated emphasis on the number seven by dividing its predictions into groups of seven, just as the creation story is divided into seven events. As though to reinforce the connection with history, The Apocalypse divides each of its seven into four beginning events, such as the four horsemen of The Apocalypse, followed by three events. Was the book structured to match history--the four millennia preceding Christ and three to follow. Following the biblical history via its genealogies through the first four millennia, one arrives at the birth of Christ exactly between the fourth and fifth millennium, which to this day remains the turning point of our calendar (B.C. to A.D.). One can hardly state any date in history without inadvertently referencing it to this singular event. As if to reinforce this application of biblical numerology, The Apocalypse places a major interlude in each series of seven events right after the sixth event, just as it did right after the fourth event. The interruptions after the sixth event always describes some aspect of the resurrection of Christ's followers. Are these interruptions after the sixth event intended to prefigure a second interruption in human history after the sixth millennium similar to the one that occurred with the first coming of Christ after the fourth millennium? As though to say "yes," the seventh and final event in each series uniquely mentions the return of Christ. The resurrection of Christ's followers is always associated in the New Testament with Christ's second coming. So what may be symbolized in the very structure of the Book of Revelation is a time line of human history--four millennia preceding the first coming, two additional millennia preceding the second coming, and a final (seventh) millennium during which the returned Christ reigns on earth with his resurrected followers. There is a caveat, of course: our calendar contains minor errors. (See Footnote) As a result, the calendar is probably off in dating its years from the birth of Jesus by about four years. The good Bishop Usher may also have made a few miscalculations in adding up the years of biblical history before Christ. Millennia, however, are not the kind of precise measurement one sets one's watch by. One might even question whether Christ's life should be calculated as an interlude in human events so that the prophetic clock did not start ticking away the millennia again until after he physically left the earth. All of that considered, the time for testing an ancient, once-popular, and long-standing view of biblical prophecy is roughly at hand. An interesting time to be alive. (Some of the material in this article was adapted from the book End-Time Prophecies of the Bible by David Haggith, published by Putnam. The author is David Haggith. (Home page.. MILLENNIUMhope.info) FOOTNOTE: Some scholars have suggested that two principal errors appear to have occurred from the Hebrew sages of the past: 1) From a misunderstanding of Daniel 9, their erroneous assumption that there were 490 years between the destruction of the First and Second Temples, rather than 656, introduced a 166-year error. 2) A copyist error in the Septuagint text of the genealogies of Genesis 5 appears to have introduced another 73 years. (Bereanpublishers.com) | 
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